Would anyone like to practice...

[Quantum3]

Originally Posted by flexmanta

Cheap is not a disqualification, it's just a qualification. Cheap... as in, expensive retouch services will never involve blur (unless used for special effects), and cheap ones do.

Okay then, peyorative.

[DWThomp]

Here is my finished edit. Worked on it a few hours here and there, not sure of the total hours, but several to say the least. For a full size (about 3.5MB) click here.

Thank you Tony for a great opportunity to work on this.

[ringus]

Hello.

I'd like to say something good about this retouch, Thomp. You used d&b to smooth the skin quite well but you destroyed bone structure on the chest. You didn't repair hair. It still needs liquifying to smooth it. Besides that, it looks blurry. Especially on the right cheek by jaw.

Hope I helped a bit. Good luck with next retouches.
-RingUS

[Chris807]

... D&B is a neverending story.

i give up!

[Quantum3]

Originally Posted by Chris807

... D&B is a neverending story.

i give up!

The lighting of the photo already was great. Why did you supressed it? Now her cheekbone looks flat.

[Phaeton]

Hi guys/girls
This is my first post. Thanks Tony for a great image - sharp, balanced, great light and lots of texture to work with. I decided to fix the hair a bit more than others had done and somehow, towards the end, veered off to a cooler background and more desaturated skintones. I know I could have spend way longer on it but it's close to 1am and I want to go to bed.

A larger file can be found here
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/6467/mg1269l.jpg

[ungemeinfein]

Hi Phaeton,
the skin looks very good, but I don't like the deformation of her head very much. It looks like a different person since you liquified characteristic parts of her head. Maybe that was a little "too much" (just my 2 cents). Funny, I chose a similar look when it comes to desaturation and cooler backgroud color.

edit:

So here we go, this is my result. This was my first serious beauty retouch and I put several hours of dodging and burning into it. Since I am still learning (well, I think we all are, even the pros), I would be glad to read some feedback on my work. I changed the hair because I actually think she looks more pretty like that, however you can see a version with the long hair (and a better quality of this one) here: http://bit.ly/9jhKvr

Thanks to Tony for the image, was a lot of fun working on it! And thanks to all you guys who posted their results so far - lots of inspiration. And @Flexmanta - just wow! Awesome and very professional work.

So what do you think?

[shelly_and_roy]

I took another crack at it. Still not editing at full-res, but higher this time. I'm attaching before and after of scaled-down-so-you-can-see-the-overall-effect, and detail at the resolution I edited at.

I'm glad to see people looking at the uploads and offering specific comments. It's very helpful to have others' eyes on your work.

[shelly_and_roy]

ungemeinfein: I like the change of hair style. It takes it from seeming like maybe she's just out of the shower to maybe she's wearing an off-the-shoulder gown for an evening out.

The skin looks very clean, and all of your reshaping is very subtle. I like the color over the eyes, but I think it calls for more color elsewhere on the face (cheeks and lips) for balance. I think you made the skin color too uniform over the whole face.

[Quantum3]

Originally Posted by Phaeton

Hi guys/girls
This is my first post. Thanks Tony for a great image - sharp, balanced, great light and lots of texture to work with. I decided to fix the hair a bit more than others had done and somehow, towards the end, veered off to a cooler background and more desaturated skintones. I know I could have spend way longer on it but it's close to 1am and I want to go to bed.

A larger file can be found here
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/6467/mg1269l.jpg

Nice work you did on the hair! Any tips!?

[Quantum3]

Originally Posted by ungemeinfein

Hi Phaeton,
the skin looks very good, but I don't like the deformation of her head very much. It looks like a different person since you liquified characteristic parts of her head. Maybe that was a little "too much" (just my 2 cents). Funny, I chose a similar look when it comes to desaturation and cooler backgroud color.

edit:

So here we go, this is my result. This was my first serious beauty retouch and I put several hours of dodging and burning into it. Since I am still learning (well, I think we all are, even the pros), I would be glad to read some feedback on my work. I changed the hair because I actually think she looks more pretty like that, however you can see a version with the long hair (and a better quality of this one) here: http://bit.ly/9jhKvr

Thanks to Tony for the image, was a lot of fun working on it! And thanks to all you guys who posted their results so far - lots of inspiration. And @Flexmanta - just wow! Awesome and very professional work.

So what do you think?

Looks really nice, but skin tones are quite messy and the hair needs a bit more of depth. The cutting out looks good, but the back of her head too tidy.

[edgework]

Don't know if this is extreme, or "forced;" I tried to imagine her on a good day with clear skin. The only thing I couldn't really repair was the left eye. It'll need to be rebuilt.

http://edgework.tripod.com/tony_ball_retouch.jpg

[Quantum3]

Originally Posted by edgework

Don't know if this is extreme, or "forced;" I tried to imagine her on a good day with clear skin. The only thing I couldn't really repair was the left eye. It'll need to be rebuilt.

http://edgework.tripod.com/tony_ball_retouch.jpg

How the hell you fixed the hair? Looks really cool!

[ungemeinfein]

shelly_and_roy: Thanks a lot for your feedback. Glad you like her new haircut since I showed this to some people and it was like 50:50 - some said it looked cool, others said it looked totally weird I'm excited to read some more opinions on that topic here.

When it comes to the color in her face you might be completely right, I'm just not very experienced with makeup etc and don't really know where to put some balancing color. Just put in the blue beacause it looked cool to me and fit to the background I suppose I should read a book or sth on that topic since it really helps enhancing images if used correctly.

Yours is quite cool, skin looks very clean but maybe slightly too soft for my taste. Maybe you should go more into detail regarding her eyes and eybrows, for example the shadows under her eyes have very different colors on the left an right side. And I would remove some of the loose hair on her eyebrows to give more shape to them. Furthermore (haha i never used that word since i left school, sorry if my English sounds weird) I think the white on her eyes is little too bright - exspecially on her left one. They "pop out" too much. But with a little more attention to the details that makes a very good retouching in my eyes. Well done!

Thanks again for your opinion, much appriciated!

[Quantum3]

Here is my attempt. Didn't do too much on the hair more than cloning few stray hairs (there are too much!). However, I saw a couple of people here did a great job with the hair, would love to read some tips about hair reotouching

Here is the high-res: http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...d/_MG_1269.jpg

[Phaeton]

Originally Posted by Quantum3

Nice work you did on the hair! Any tips!?

Thanks, I don't think is my best hair but I didn't really spend the right amount of time on it. I haven't got any new tips in this area other than the usual: clone like hell, lift "good" hair and transform (scaling and warping) to fit. Colour and light accordingly. Finally you can always sample underlying colours and paint in (thin brushes matching the underlying hair) your own hair on a separate layer above; this layer then needs to be made to match the original hair in sharpness, tone, light, etc.
Obviously this takes a long time, so patience might be the right tool here :-)
Cheers!

[Quantum3]

Originally Posted by Phaeton

Thanks, I don't think is my best hair but I didn't really spend the right amount of time on it. I haven't got any new tips in this area other than the usual: clone like hell, lift "good" hair and transform (scaling and warping) to fit. Colour and light accordingly. Finally you can always sample underlying colours and paint in (thin brushes matching the underlying hair) your own hair on a separate layer above; this layer then needs to be made to match the original hair in sharpness, tone, light, etc.
Obviously this takes a long time, so patience might be the right tool here :-)
Cheers!

Absolutely. I thought doing all the cloning (which is what I know for hair), but it would taken about 3-4 hours. How many hours it have taken to you?

[Phaeton]

The cloning is the killer, it seems to take forever. I only did the hair for about 1 hour, I probably could have taken it to a better place had I done another hour or so. I've done some fairly complex hair work that's taken 6-7 hours though!
Cheers!

[ungemeinfein]

Originally Posted by Quantum3

Looks really nice, but skin tones are quite messy and the hair needs a bit more of depth. The cutting out looks good, but the back of her head too tidy.

Thank you! Any suggestions how to address the messy skin tones? I have to admit that I retouched without looking to any actual color values, just did what looked "good" to me on my screen which is not the best one. So maybe you can see things I don't see. What exactly do you mean with "too tidy"? Should I add more hair on her neck?

Originally Posted by edgework

Don't know if this is extreme, or "forced;" I tried to imagine her on a good day with clear skin. The only thing I couldn't really repair was the left eye. It'll need to be rebuilt.
http://edgework.tripod.com/tony_ball_retouch.jpg

Well, that was definitely too much in my opinion, not only on the left eye. Doesn't look very human to me anymore, sorry. But your work on the hair is quite cool, I really had my difficulties to fill all these gaps and make it look less messy.

Originally Posted by Quantum3

Here is my attempt. Didn't do too much on the hair more than cloning few stray hairs (there are too much!). However, I saw a couple of people here did a great job with the hair, would love to read some tips about hair reotouching
Here is the high-res: http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...d/_MG_1269.jpg

Quite cool! I'm a little bit confused about the very dark eyebrows, of course its the right way to darken them if you darken the hair, but that looks strange to me, can't tell you why. Just too dark maybe, looks more male than female with those eyebrows, at least to me. But skin is great and you did a very good job on the lips. Nice!

[Lung]

So that's my first post here at retouchpro - hy

Well, here is my WIP. Think i will finish it tomorrow

Note: I didn't change the pose of the model CAUSE i think this pose looks mutch more natural. But it's only my personal feeling so feel free.

Some Hairjob will be done by a large cup of coffee

Rene

[edgework]

Originally Posted by Quantum3

How the hell you fixed the hair? Looks really cool!

Drew it all with a pen. 6px brush, 100% but opacity and size set to pressure sensitive. Used four or five tones sampled from the existing hair. Start with a median tone to fill in all the gaps, add highlights and darker strands to provide variety. Hardest part is keeping the strokes from curling at the ends as you pull the pen away, so I masked the hair area and let the strokes run past the edge. The blur tool deals with depth at the edges, large brush with a soft edge to fade the strokes as they blur. Takes time but it's the only way. Cloning never gives a uniform result, particularly when you start with such a meager set of samples as this image has.

As for the rest, maybe it's too much. Maybe not. Depends on who you're working for and what they want. No point leaving her with cracked lips and a smile turned down at the edges.

[goolug]

Hi guys!

I'm new to this forum and to Protoshop too, but I decided to give it a try. It took me 8 hours of hard work and I feel like I'm still now tone yet. Though it seems to me like I'm the best in the whole thread. So, I think I'll teach you how to retouch another day.

Here's the link:
http://imgur.com/aHuG0.jpg

Please, don't beat me too hard.

[goolug]

I'm kidding of course.
Here's my take:
http://comparescreenshots.slicx.com/comparison/36805

Just put your mouse over to see final result.

I know about her hair, her skin and some other stuff which needs to be finished properly, but it's not that bad for an hour of lazy working.

[goolug]

Oh, and sure, sorry for liquefying. I just wanted to make her pretty so I fixed her a little bit. Damn! Ok! I'll post a finished one tomorrow.

[thecuke]

Do you mind if I use this in my portfolio/s online?

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/9231/80162392.jpg

[flexmanta]

With all due respect, i wouldn't use it if i were you. One has to respect the learning period and know that in some years you will look back and spot every mistake you did on each photo, spotting them as any potential client will do when they see it as it is now.

I am so afraid of that same fact myself, that even photos that I have retouched for photogs, and that other established retouchers have critiqued positively, I'm afraid to post on my portfolio.

-lips too red.
-fixed the skin without fixing what needed fixing (shadows, hair, eyes, skin tone, HAIR)
-you had the raw, that means you are almost obligued to get rid of all the pure blacks in her where there was texture (hair, right eye)
-tone again. The whole image, looks like a duotone of sepias, but then you see those lips and their color and it breaks composition.
-Skin: Im sure at that size i can't see everything you see in your screen at full size, but it looks like you did one of those "recipe techniques" like blur first, high pass then, and what not... try dodging and burning, she didnt need anything else than that. And if you separate frequencies, you can heal the high and it'll look just great. This was an easy one regarding skin. Just hope you get over the blurring quickly.
-Lastly, general DB: There are some unflattering shadows in her face. Cheeks; around the nose; there are various unpleasant shadow-light-shadow bumps that need fixing (try inverted high passes).

Point is, i think this retouch would harm your portfolio more than enhance it. Don't take it personal. I'm an ass when it comes to critique, i know... I hope I'm also right.

[tom60634]

I tried to emphasize the model's expressive eyes, brows and mouth.
I cleared up a few skin imperfections but left the basic foundation as found.
I'm not a fan of the overly smooth look, skin pores are after all a needed and natural phenomena.

I think I've achieved a bit of a lara croft type of look. Interesting (?) but not scary interesting.

[Quantum3]

Originally Posted by thecuke

Do you mind if I use this in my portfolio/s online?

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/9231/80162392.jpg

Flexmanta did a great point advising you to not to put it in your port. Happened to me the same thing than happened to him about posting the first thing in the port (and surely happened to many more!). When clients take a look to the port will run away instead hiring you with what you did with the picture. Well, with what you didn't, to be more precise. The skin looks good, but the small white stuff in her hair catchs up the attention in an snap and that's what will make the client running away. Improve your techniques before posting in your port. Think that your port must show your best skills always.

Mart

[kaba]

Hi everyone. I´m new in Retouchpro and must say that it seems really educational and time consuming. This is my first upload and first post. Hope to hear your comments and critique.http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/mem...retouchpro.jpg

[flexmanta]

Nothing in that link. You have to upload the file as an attachment. You can do by clicking on "go advanced".